Hiring Resources for New AI Safety Organizations

The current vision for this project is making you very knowledgeable about hiring in AI safety, and turning this knowledge into a format that other people can easily consume, such as an EA/LessWrong forum post or website. The goal is not for you to become an expert in hiring, but to become more knowledgeable than the average founder starting out, and find valuable nuggets of information.

This project will not be passively consuming knowledge. You will be writing, getting feedback, and potentially talking to hiring managers. You will be synthesizing information from many sources, and iterating on the resource until it is high quality. You will be proud of what you have made by the end of SPAR, and I hope it to be a solid piece of career capital for you.

The final shape of this project is not yet fully determined, as I haven't explored what is or is not necessary. Perhaps a comprehensive resource is not what is required, but instead many specific examples of where hiring has gone poorly. I prefer not shielding you from the real-world ambiguity of projects changing directions, rather than sticking to a version of this project I wrote about in an hour and producing something that doesn't actually make an impact.

Here is an example of some output the project can produce: Hiring 101 from The Manager's Handbook. I've already done some preliminary work by talking to people about hiring, and writing this knowledge down.

Hiring is one of the most important functions in organizations — this is especially true for new organizations. There is a lot of knowledge about hiring that is both tacit (which will require interviewing hiring managers) and explicit (scattered among many blog posts) that is inaccessible to busy founders. By creating a high quality resource for new organizations, this will improve their hiring, which will improve the impact the organization can make.

Reading and synthesis of the resources that exist (books, blog posts), potentially interviewing hiring managers, and iterating on the post by getting feedback from hiring managers.

Fellows will gain a lot of useful knowledge on hiring, which would be useful for their own pursuits (it's good to know what hiring managers are looking for and how they think!) as well as if they join any young, scaling organization, as it is likely they'd be expected to hire.

My preference and the most likely outcome is for the fellow to have ownership of this project and for me to provide feedback, guidance and support. At a minimum, I can have a weekly check-in and give asynchronous feedback on writing within 48 hours. I am committing to at least 1 hour/week with each mentee, with more in the beginning. I'd be happy if some of our time is spent with non-project related conversations, such as career advice.

The minimum expectation is that you have at least one of the following:

• You are good at writing and synthesizing information from many sources.
• You are excited to work on this project, and have "that dog in you" to get it done.
• You are a quick learner, and are able to move quickly and get feedback.

I'd be very excited if you have done hiring or recruiting yourself (for a company, or a university club), have written publicly before (bonus points if it is in the style of a comprehensive resource), or feel comfortable interviewing people and talking to them. I do not expect you to be very good in all of the above areas!